I have explained before that I get baking recipes and inspiration from everywhere. Usually, most of my ideas come to me in my dreams when my mind is free to roam in candyland. During this season, the shorter days and longer nights give me more time for more enticing inceptions. I also get concepts from remixing other recipes that I have or others have already created.
A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation via social media about fall recipes. One of my social media friends was discussing these popular pumpkin cheesecake cookies. She, being a fan of these favored fall cookies, suggested that they might taste better if they were sweet potato based. Although I had heard of these cookies before, I had never actually tried them. That was enough incentive for me to get started on experimenting on a new autumn treat.
I started out by buying and trying the original pumpkin cheesecake cookies. The cookies were pretty satisfying. They were soft and filled with notes of pumpkin and spices. The cookies had morsels of white chocolate that represented the cheesecake flavor. After a few cookies, I knew exactly how I was going to make my version even better tasting. Not only was going to make some delicious sweet potato cookies, but I would accompany these cookies with some ice cream. This was not going to be an ordinary ice cream but an extraordinary sweet potato ice cream filled with cream cookie butter and cinnamon cookie bits.
The sweet potato cheesecake cookies and sweet potato cookie butter (no churn) ice cream were very easy to make and turned out better than I imagined. This may sound biased, but these were probably the best ice cream sandwiches I treated to myself to. The cookies were perfectly soft and flavored. The ice cream was not overly sweet and complimented the cookies perfectly. The ice cream sandwiches were even more magical as they were decorated with Kaleidoscope Sprinkles new fall Sprinkle Mix, Mellow Leaves from Heaven.
Definitely give both of these easy recipes a try this season. Both are great for indulging, cooking with kids in the kitchen and/ or impressing family/ friends.
Both recipes and step by step video can be found below.
Ingredients
Sweet Potato Cookie Butter (No churn) Ice Cream:
1 pint (16 fl. oz.) of heavy cream, keep very cold
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
1 cup pureed sweet potato
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg (fresh is best)
¼ tsp. orange zest
½ cup cinnamon cookies, crushed into bite sized pieces.
¼ cup cookie butter, slightly melted
Sweet Potato Cheesecake Cookies:
1 ½ cup flour
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. nutmeg (fresh is best)
¼ tsp. orange zest
12 tbsp. (¾ cup) unsalted butter
½ cup pureed sweet potato
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup white chocolate chips
Directions
Start by making the ice cream. In a medium sized bowl, using a spatula mix together sweet potato, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and orange zest until mooth. Set mixture aside.
In a large bowl, using a hand or stand mixer add heavy cream. Whip heavy cream until it doubles in size and soft peaks form.
Add sweet potato mixture to heavy cream. Using spatula, lightly fold sweet potato mixture into heavy cream until completely combined. Be sure not to over mix or cream will deflate and ice cream won't be airy.
Place ice cream mixture into a loaf pan. Cover ice cream with plastic wrap and place in freezer overnight to harden.
To make cookies:
In a medium sized bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and orange zest. Set flour mixture aside.
In a large separate bowl, using either hand or stand mixer, cream together butter and brown sugar. Cream butter and sugar together until butter is pale yellow and doubled in size. Add sweet potato. Add eggs one at a time. Mix until smooth. Add vanilla extract. Add half of flour mixture to cream mixture and stir until incorporated. Add second half of flour mixture. Stir until incorporated. Add white chocolate chips and cheesecake bites (optional) to batter. Slowly fold in until combined.
Cover dough with plastic wrap and place cookie dough in refrigerator for 30 minutes to overnight.
Once ready to bake cookies, remove dough from refrigerator for at least 20-30 minutes before baking.
Preheat oven to 350F.
Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Using cookie scoop or ice cream scoop, place cookie dough onto sheets about 1.5-2 inches apart. Bake for 12-15 minutes until cookies are slightly golden and firm to touch. Remove from oven and allow cookies to cool completely to room temperature.
Remove ice cream from freezer. Use ice cream scoop to place ice cream on top of cookies. Cover ice cream with additional cookies.
Decorate ice cream sandwiches with Mellow Leaves from Heaven Sprinkle Mix.
Devour and enjoy!!
*For pureed sweet potatoes: Preheat oven to 400F. Clean and dry 3-4 medium/ large sweet potatoes. Using a cookie sheet, bake sweet potatoes until fork tender (approximately 30-35 minutes.) Remove from oven and allow sweet potatoes to complete cool. Remove skins from sweet potatoes. Place sweet potatoes in large bowl and use immersion blender./ or counter blender to puree. Blend sweet potatoes until texture slightly chunkier than baby food.